Where is the fuel?

From the Nepali press

Sujan Oli in baahrakhari.com, 19 February

Two weeks after India officially lifted its blockade of Nepal, consumers here are still reeling from the fuel shortage. Fuel continues to be rationed in gas stations across the country, as consumers are made to wait long hours in queues.

Since the opening of the Raxaul border earlier this month, Kathmandu has been receiving 600,000 litres of petrol, 2 million litres of diesel and 5,700 tons of LPG gas on a daily basis.

The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) claims it has been dispatching double the 350,000 litres of the required daily demand for petrol in Kathmandu. Likewise, the Thankot Depot of the NOC has been supplying more than double the amount of diesel needed in the capital to several petrol pumps. Although data provided by the NOC says enough fuel is coming into Nepal to meet public demand, somehow that hasn’t resulted in an ease of supply.

"Why don’t the queues decrease even when the supply is doubled? Those who say that NOC isn’t supplying the petroleum products should monitor the pumps," says Netra Kafle, chief of NOC’s Thankot Depot. Since the border reopened on 5 February, 70 per cent of the daily required fuel has been entering Nepal. But no one knows how or from where this is distributed.

According to Mukunda Ghimire, a spokesperson of the NOC, 40 bullets of LPG is entering the country daily, meeting 80 per cent of the demand. But consumers are still forced to pay Rs 1200 for half-filled cylinders.

Even though the supplies of petroleum products have eased since the border reopened, consumers still have to suffer because the government has not taken any steps to improve the distribution channels.

Chairman of Consumer Rights Investigation Forum, Madhav Timilsina, says that both the NOC and pump operators are involved in black marketing.